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Algernon Sidney.

Algernon Sidney, 1621–1683, is known chiefly on political grounds.

Sidney was distinguished for his enlightened and republican principles. Being convicted of treason, and executed, on an accusation which was afterwards proved to be false, he became in the popular estimation a martyr, and his name has been invested with a halo of glory. He belonged to a noble family, and he was himself a man of elegant culture and manners. He wrote Discourses on Government, containing his political views, Letters, and an Essay on Love.

"In all the Discourses of Algernon Sidney upon Government we see constant indications of a rooted dislike to monarchy and an ardent love of democracy: but not a sentence can we find that shows the illustrious author to have regarded the manner in which the people were represented as of any importance."- Brougham.

Evelyn.

John Evelyn, F. R. S., 1620-1705, is chiefly known by his Sylva, or a Discourse on Forest Trees.

"Evelyn's Sylva is still the manual of British planters, and his life, manners, and principles, as illustrated in his Memoirs, ought equally to be the manual of English gentlemen."- Walter Scott. Evelyn was a man of elegant culture, and both in his life and writings maintained a singular purity of character, the more noticeable on account of the general dissoluteness of manners of the age in which he lived. He was married at the age of twenty-six to a girl not yet fourteen, the daughter of the English ambassador in Paris. Evelyn's plan seems

to have been to marry the young lady first, and educate her afterwards.

She writes of him after his death:

"His care of my education was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and a husband, for instruction, tenderness, affection, and fidelity, to the last moment of his life, which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory ever dear to me; and I must not om to own the sense I have of my parents' care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands."

Evelyn was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society; his work on forest trees was written at their request, and was the first work published by them. It was written in view of the rapid destruction and disappearance of the forest trees in England, and of the importance of maintaining a proper amount of timber on the island, in order to the naval supremacy of the nation. The work was a seasonable one, and it seems to have had the desired effect.

"Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted."-Disraeli. Evelyn's other works are numerous. The following are the chief: Sculpture, a History of the Art of Engraving; Terra, a Philosophical Discourse on Earth; A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern; Acetaria, a Discourse of Sallets; Fumifugium, or The Inconvenience of the Air and Smoke of London Dissipated; Numismata, a Discourse of Metals, etc., etc.

Ray.

John Ray (Wray), 1627-1704, attained distinction as a naturalist.

Career. - Ray was the son of a blacksmith; he studied at Cambridge, and was admitted to orders in the Church of England. In 1662 he refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, and resigned his fellowship. In company with his friend and patron, Willoughby, he travelled on the continent for three years, making scientific investigations. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667.

Ray was a man of considerable general learning and ability, but is chiefly known as a naturalist. Nearly all his works, which are very numerous, are on natural-history topics. The greatest of them are his Universal History of Plants, and his Synopsis of Quadrupeds and Serpents. Ray's contributions to the study of botany and zoology are extremely valuable. He was the first fairly to establish the great division of plants into monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous, and of animals into those with and those without blood. Cuvier pronounces him “the first true systematist of the animal kingdom." Traces of his influence are everywhere visible in the works of Linnæus, Buffon, and others. Besides his strictly scientific works, Ray published a small collection of English Proverbs and an account of his Travels on the continent.

JOHN WALLIS, D. D., 1616-1703, is the author of the first English Grammar published.

Wallis was eminent as an astronomer and a mathematician, was Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and Keeper of the University Archives. He was Secretary to the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and also afterwards was one of the divines appointed on the Presbyterian side, in the Savoy Conference of 1661, to revise the Book of Common Prayer. Wallis published many works of a scientific character, mostly in Latin. He is connected with English literature only by the t that he wrote on English Grammar, 1653. Even this is in Latin, but as it was the first attempt, of any moment, to reduce the laws of the English language to system and rule, and as this treatise contains the germ of most that has since been accomplished in this line, it deserves at least this passing notice.

SAMUEL PEPYS, 1632-1703, has a permanent place in literature, by virtue of his Diary, which was not known to be in existence until more than a century after his death, and which was not published in full until a few years ago.

Pepys was a native of London, and was educated at Cambridge. For a number of years he was secretary to the Lords of Admiralty. Pepys published during his lifetime two works that are not without value: Portugal History in 1667 and 1668; and Memoirs on the State of the Royal Navy. But these works are completely overshadowed by Pepys's immortal Diary. This unique work lay for more than a century, in shorthand MS., unknown, in the Pepysian library of Magdalen College. It was deciphered and published, but only in a mutilated form, in 1825. In 1849 appeared a fuller edition, but even this leaves much to be desired. The time covered by this diary is from 1659 to 1669. The work is one of intense interest to all who are interested in English literature and history. The writer seems to have seen everybody, and gone everywhere, was an interminable gossip, and an indefatigable searcher after odds and ends. The style is quaint and garrulous, enlivened with the most cheerful naïveté.

"The best book of its kind in the English language. Pepys is marvellously entertaining: the times and the man peep out in a thousand odd circumstances and amusing expressions. . . . The ablest picture of the age in which the writer lived, and a work of standard importance in English literature." London Athenæum.

SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE, 1616-1704, was a political writer who defended without scruple all the enormities of the Court of Charles II. and James II., and was rewarded by being knighted and made Licenser of the Press.

He was by no means deficient in readiness and shrewdness; and his diction, though coarse, and disfigured by a mean and flippant jargon which then passed for wit in the greeuroom and the tavern, was not without keenness and vigor. But his nature, at once ferocious and ignoble, showed itself in every line that he penned." — Macaulay.

Besides his political and controversial pieces, he translated a large number of works, chiefly from the ancient classics: Æsop's Fables; Seneca's Morals; Cicero's Offices; Erasmus's Colloquies, Josephus, Quevedo's Visions, etc. The Queen, who had a great contempt for him, made the following anagram on his name, which perhaps did him no injustice:

"Roger L'Estrange,
Lying strange Roger."

EDWARD CHAMBERLAYNE, LL. D., 1616-1703, was a political and miscellaneous writer. The Present War Parallelled; England's Wants; Angliæ Notitia, or The Present State of England; A Dialogue between an Englishman and a Dutchman, concerning the last Dutch War; The Converted Presbyterian; An Academy or College, wherein Young Ladies and Gentlemen may, at a very moderate expense, be educated in the Christian religion, etc. JoN CHAMBERLAYNE, d. 1723, son of Edward, was distinguished as a linguist, being acquainted with ten different languages. The Angliæ Notitia, begun by the father, was continued by the son. He wrote also Dissertations on the Memorable Events of the Old and New Testaments, and translated a large number of works from the French and Dutch,

SIR SAMUEL MORLAND, 1625-1693, was an accomplished scholar in the times of Oliver Cromwell and the Stuarts. He held high positions, and was distinguished for his mechanical genius and inventions. Of his literary works, the one which is of most note is The History of the Evangelical Churches in the Valley of Piedmont, fol. It is often referred to, and is a standard authority on that subject.

SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, 1636-1691, a native of Dundee, educated at Aberdeen and St. Andrew's, held several high judicial and political appointments in Scotland. Sir George is the author of many works and essays which were held in high repute at one time, but have since fallen into disfavor and neglect. The best known are: Religio Stoica, Moral Gallantry, Jus Regium, a defence of absolute monarchy, On the Discovery of the Fanatick Plot, and Memoirs of the History of Scotland. Sir George's treatment of his subjects is commonplace, and his style affected and pedantic.

SIR ROBERT ATKYNS, 1621-1709, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer under William III., and for some time Speaker of the House of Commons, was the author of several learned treatises on Parliamentary law: An Inquiry into the Power of Dispensing with Penal Laws; The Power of Jurisdiction and Privileges of Parliament; The True and Ancient Jurisdiction of the House of Peers; The Jurisdiction of the Chancery in Causes of Equity. Also two pamphlets in defence of Lord Russell, SIR ROBERT ATKYNS, 1647-1711, son of Sir Robert, was the author of a work entitled "The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire," "-a large folio, beautifully printed and adorned with pictures of scenery and of the seats of the nobility and gentry.

JOHN EACHARD, D. D., 1636-1697, Master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, was noted as a writer for the keenness of his ridicule, though as a preacher he was dull and prosy. He wrote Hobbes's State of Nature Considered, in a dialogue between Philautus and Timothy; The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy; Non-Conforming Preachers, etc. Hobbes, though full of conceit and impervious to direct argument, was very sensitive to Eachard's ridicule.

"I was in company with Hobbes when he swore and cursed, and raved like a madman at the mention of Dr. Eachard's Timothy and Philautus." - Dr. Hickes.

"I have known men happy enough at ridicule, who, upon grave subjects, were perfectly stupid; of which Dr. Eachard, of Cambridge, who wrote The Contempt of the Clergy, was a great instance." — Swift.

JOSEPH GLANVILLE, 1636–1680, a learned clergyman of the Church of England, was a scientific man, an active member of the Royal Society, and an advocate of the Aristotelian philosophy. Yet he believed firmly in witchcraft, and published several treatises to prove its truth, and regarded as sceptics and Sadducees those who were otherwise minded. His principal works are: Blow at Modern Sadduceeism, on Witches and Witchcraft; Sadducismus Triumphans, or a Full and Plain Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions; Plus Ultra, or the Progress of Knowledge since Aristotle; Scepsis Scientifica, or Confessed Ignorance the Way to Knowledge, etc., etc. "The whole work is strongly marked with the features of an acute, an original, and, in matters of science, a somewhat sceptical genius; and when compared with the treatise on witchcraft, by the same author, adds another proof to those already mentioned of the possible union of the highest intellectual gifts with the most degrading intellectual weakness." - Dugald Stewart.

GEORGE HICKES, D. D., 1642-1715, educated at Oxford, and made Dean of Worcester, was deprived for refusing to take the oath to William and Mary. Hickes was one of the most learned men of his time, and inflexible in his religious principles. He published several theological writings, but is best known by his contributions to the study of Anglo-Saxon and Old English. His two great works are Institutiones Grammaticæ Anglo-Saxonicæ, &c., and Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus, &c., containing extracts from original A. S. manuscripts now lost.

ANDREW FLETCHER, of Saltoun, 1653-1716, was a Scottish statesman of high character, and in great respect for his parliamentary eloquence and his zealous championship of the rights of the people. A collection of his Discourses and Speeches has been published. One sentiment of his is often quoted. It occurs in a letter to the Marquis of Montrose: "I knew a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."

THOMAS BURNET, 1635-1715, gained great distinction by the publication of a philosophical treatise in Latin, on The Sacred Theory of the Earth. He translated it into English with alterations and additions. Its scheme of geology is utterly absurd,— was so even with the dim light then possessed on this subject; yet the treatise found many readers, and even some disciples, on account of the extreme beauty of its style.

JAMES DRAKE, M. D., 1667-1707, was a political writer, whose publications produced considerable ferment. His History of the Last Parliament, 1702, and Historia AngloScotica, gave great offence to the Government, and were burnt by the common hangman.

ROGER PALMER, Earl of Castlemain,

1705, ambassador from James II. to the Pope, was the author of several works: The Present War between the Venetians and the Turks; The Late War between the English and Dutch in Savoy; Apology for the Papists, &c.

SIR THOMAS POPE BLOUNT, 1649-1697, eldest son of Sir Henry Blount, was a member of the House of Commons, and for many years commissioner of accounts. He published a book in Latin, which was a sort of Dictionary of Authors, including those of all nations: Censura Celebriorum Authorum - A Critique on the most celebrated Authors. Also, A Natural History, and a volume of Essays on Poetry, Learning, Education, etc.

CHARLES BLOUNT, 1654–1693, a gentleman of good birth and education, son of Sir Henry Blount, published several works of an infidel tendency, Anima Mundi, Great is Diana of the Ephesians, William and Mary Conquerors, etc. He was a man of irregular desires, and he ended his life by suicide.

CAPT. WILLIAM DAMPIER, 1652 —, a famous old navigator, was the author of Dampier's Voyage Round the World, 4 vols., 8vo, etc.

ROBERT BRADY, 1643-1700, wrote several historical works, the chief of which is A Complete History of England, 3 vols., folio. This work is highly commended for its accuracy. Hume is said to have drawn upon it largely for the materials of his work.

JOHN AUBREY, 1627-1697, has no little notoriety as an antiquary.

Aubrey's Miscellanies was published in 1696, and is full of the supernatural, Transportation in the Air, Blows Invisible, Converse with Angels and Spirits, etc., etc. Most of his antiquarian works were left in MS., but have since been published. Perambulation of the County of Surrey, appeared in 5 vols., 1725. His Collection for Wilts was published in 1821, his Lives of Eminent Men in 1813. His character as an antiquary is in dispute, some critics counting him half crazed and unworthy of credit, others believing him credible in his account of whatever passed under his own observation, though not to be trusted in his conjectures. Some of the most interesting of the alleged facts in the early life of Shakespeare depend upon Aubrey's testimony.

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